


We Can't Say Goodbye (Part 2)

by makingitwork



Series: Bughead Prompts [28]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: AU, Age Difference, Babysitting, Established Relationship, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Holidays, Oblivious Betty, Oblivious Jughead, bughead - Freeform, childhood crush, fluffy fluff, jughead polly friendship, older jughead, pining Jughead, pining betty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 14:16:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15608097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makingitwork/pseuds/makingitwork
Summary: Betty's been in love since she was eight years old, when Polly brought home her new friend; fourteen year old Jughead Jones.But now she's 22 and he's 28 and they're in love.It's all good.Right?





	We Can't Say Goodbye (Part 2)

**Author's Note:**

> Due to popular request and your lovely comments, a part 2 is here!
> 
> I hope you
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> x

It's weird dating Jughead. 

It's something she's wanted for so long, but now that she has it, it's...weird. 

They go out to dinner the day after Polly's wedding, and Betty stares at him across the candlelit table. He's...a grown up. He's grown up. She's got her first job and she's fresh out of her masters and she doesn't know how to write a cheque let alone pay all her bills and wiki how has been her best friend recently, but here's a  _grown up._ He does something with his hand and a waitress comes over and he smiles. " _Je voudrais du vin rouge, s'il vous plait,"_ he murmurs, and the waitress beams. He turns to Betty. "I've ordered us some red wine, is there anything else you'd like to drink?" He frowns a little, "you were drinking red at the wedding, right? I didn't imagine that."

He's nervous. She's never seen him nervous, and she nods, smiling behind her menu. The waitress leaves, and then she leans across the table. "I didn't know you spoke french." She says. He laughs, and he looks divine in his tan suit jacket and beige shirt. There are dark circles under his eyes from the reception, but he's not quite as lucky as her; hers are covered by her favourite foundation. 

"Did an excavation a few years ago in Toulouse," he says, and she's a little in awe at everything he's done. She's never even left the country. She says as much, and he smiles at her warmly. "I can take you anywhere you want to go, Betts." 

She laughs, rolling her eyes, but he presses her.

"C'mon, you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?" 

She thinks. Images of camels and lions and a safari float through her mind, the mountains of New Zealand, perhaps Paris, perhaps Tokyo, but she falters on one thing in particular and blushes when she realises what it is. "Oh um," she ducks her head and lets her soft hair hide her face. "Hadrian's Wall?"

There's a pause, and she risks a look up at him. He looks completely enamoured with her, and she's just delighted that he knows what it is. "Northern England, huh? Vallum Hadriani." 

She gapes, and he winks at her.

"I just said that to impress you." 

She beams. 

But it's still weird. They talk easily, because they've known each other so long, plus they're both pretty good conversationalists. They drink wine and laugh about the food and order dessert. Betty feels beautiful in her green summer dress, and she hooks her arm through his as they walk back to his hotel room. The streets are damp but the rain is long gone, and she feels good. She feels like she looks the part beside him, and the smiles she gets from passers by lets her know that they look like a couple. Her skin tingles where it brushes his hand, and she marvels over the way he speaks. He's so articulate, she's in a perpetual state of amazement. 

When they get back to his hotel, it's under the guise of coffee and a nightcap, but they're emboldened by the red wine, and in a matter of moments, she's up on the kitchen counter and he's standing between her legs; kissing down her neck. They haven't even managed to turn the light on, and in the darkness her other senses are heightened. She feels like she's on fire; she's aching for him in her core, and his mouth is bruising and fantastic down the pale arch of her throat. It's  _insane_ that she can fist her hands into his hair, that she can touch him, that he's touching her. It's too much, it's so much- it's everything she's ever wanted and she wants him so bad. His teeth graze her collarbone, words of reverence muffled against her skin, and she moans with desire. It catches his attention, because then they're lips are meeting again. 

It's  _nothing_ like the last time they kissed, which she still remembers. Obviously. She had thought it was perfect; chaste and sweet, and with the rush of burning shame and rejection quickly following. This isn't like that. This is passionate and reciprocated, and she can practically taste the lust on his tongue, and the way his lips vibrate when he groans her name. Too many things are flashing through her head; she's remembering him ruffling her hair when she was nine, as his fingers now brush it behind her ear. She's remembering him helping her with her homework and hiding behind the couch with her for Polly's surprise party, and now his hands are on her breasts and she arches into him and she- she  _can't._

"Wait," she whispers, as he lavishes her shoulder where her dress has been partially tugged down. "Stop, Jug, stop,"

As soon as he hears her, he rears away, and she can just about make him out in the darkness; his pupils are blown wide with lust and his hair is messy and enticing. "What?" He asks worriedly, eyes scanning her face. She wonders what she looks like. "Are you okay? Are you alright?" 

"I..." she struggles for words, and suddenly feels very small. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Hey," he says immediately, collecting her into a hug. She nuzzles into his chest and fights tears, as he rubs her back. One hand comes up and readjusts her dress and she  _knows_ she loves him. "Don't ever be sorry, Betty. We don't have to do anything you don't want to do, okay?" She sniffles, and laughs a little wetly as they pull away. He smooths his thumbs over her cheeks and smiles a little. "How about  _Aladdin?"_

She nods, and watches as he fumbles with the lamp by the couch, and soon the whole room is suffused with low gold; shadows on all the walls that don't strain her eyes. He looks so soft and appealing, she's annoyed with herself. She  _wants_ his lips on hers, she  _wants_ his arms around her, but she can't shake the feeling of their old dynamic. She feels like a child in the face of his maturity and it makes her insecure. She nestles on the couch, feet tucked under her, as he pads into the bedroom. His hotel room isn't a room, she can see now. It's a  _suite._ He's got money. She's struggling to pay off her student debt and he's got so much money. When he remerges, he's in a faded tee and shorts, and he's holding another tee and shorts out for her. "Are those for me?" She asks with a small smile, getting up, and he tips his head at her. 

"Thought you might be more comfortable."

She gets changed in his bedroom, and peaks at herself in the mirror. The shirt hangs too big on her, and so do the shorts, but she can see the appeal of her femininity and big eyes. If the way he looks at her when she heads back out is anything to go by, he can see it too. They sit on the sofa together, and throughout the film, their lips keep finding each others. It never goes past that, and he keeps his hands above her shoulders, and she wishes she could explain, but she contents herself with listening to her favourite songs, and reaching up to instigate kisses whenever she can. Just because she can. 

She falls asleep in his arms. 

 

When Betty's nine, Jughead is fifteen. Polly and her parents are going away for the weekend, and Jughead strolls into the house before they leave with a beanie, a rucksack and a grin. "Heya, Betts," he grins at her, and reaches down for a high five. She presses their palms together shyly. "Someone call for a babysitter?" He waggles his eyebrows, and Betty giggles.

Alice comes downstairs then, and beams at the sight of him. "Oh good, Forsythe, you're early. I've left all our information on the fridge, you do not hesitate to call me if there are any problems at all."

He scoffs, setting down his bag and stretching out his limbs. "What problems could there be? Betty's an angel." He reaches out his hand, and she holds it tightly, looking up at her mom. Alice laughs, before helping Hal with the bags. Polly races down the stairs now and waves. 

"Oh, thanks again, Juggie!" She insists, hugging him, and Betty watches. "I totally owe you one!" 

He shrugged easily, "just keep letting me steal your lunch and we're fine." 

Polly shoves him, before leaning down to hug Betty goodbye. "Be a wonderful little sister like always, won't you?" She asks, and Betty nods excitedly. Jughead is her favourite babysitter, because he doesn't treat her like a baby. As soon as the door shuts and it's just the two of them, he looks at her with an easy smile and goes: 

"What would you like to do first?" 

After a game of hide seek, Betty sits at the kitchen table, swinging her feet as she does her homework. Jughead's pottering around the kitchen, and comes over to join her; setting down two plates of sandwiches. She reaches for one, marvelling at the way he cuts them into triangles, whereas her mom cuts them into rectangles. His work is splayed over his half of the table, and she'd snuck a look earlier; and she'd barely understood the words on it. He has a pencil stuck behind his ear as he does something complicated with numbers. 

He looks up, quite by accident, and catches her staring at him. He grins, arching an eyebrow. "What's up, Betts?"

"Nothing!" She says quickly, and he laughs a little. 

"Is it all my spots?" He asks, prodding his cheek. Now that Betty looks, there are a collection of rather angry looking spots, just like Polly gets sometimes. He shrugs a little. "Puberty is gross, Betty. I do not recommend."

"They're just spots." She points out smartly, "they don't matter." 

He shakes his head fondly at her, and reaches over to tweak her nose. "Never change, lil Cooper. You're my favourite in the house." 

She's pretty sure he's lying, considering he spends most of his time with Polly, but she takes the compliment anyway. 

He makes them popcorn and hot chocolate, and they cuddle up on the couch. Her parents won't be back for two days, so he doesn't fuss about getting her to bed, he just slots in another DVD and he knows  _all_ the words to the songs, and she spends most of the night staring at him and not the movie. It gets darker and darker outside, and when she gets up to go to the bathroom, she comes back to find him fast asleep on the pillow-strewn floor from where they made their fort. She bites her lip and tiptoes across the blankets and pillows to him, and lies down on the ground facing him. The television throws streaks of light across his relaxed face and she stares at it until she drifts off. 

When she wakes up in the morning, she nearly squeals. His arm's slung over her, and she's nestled small and safe into his chest. He's snoring a little, and she gets a dead arm from her reluctance to move. She stays in his embrace until he wakes up, and has a tingling arm all through their pancake breakfast. 

 

Jughead has apartments dotted all over America. He's a good archeologist and his boss usually sets him up with a place to live whenever he has to relocate. He often just ends up buying them and leasing them out, and Betty marvels at how he manages to do it all. She watches as he packs the morning after they've watched Aladdin, and sips her tea from the hotel armchair in the corner. "Which apartment are you going to?" She asks, and he throws her a smile. 

" _We_ are going to the airport, Betty." He informs her cheerfully.

She frowns. "Uh...why?"

"Because." He tosses her his phone, and she barely manages to catch it before looking at the screen. They're e-tickets. Flights. To England. She stares at them, and then up at Jughead who's tossing his shoes into his open suitcase. She runs and leaps into his arms, and he laughs delightedly; kissing her temple. "You didn't have to go back to work till Monday, did you?" 

She whacks his arm fondly but can't help but scream in excitement. 

Her bags are already packed in her own hotel, and they make a quick stop in the taxi ride over to go and get them. It's the most impulsive thing she's ever done. She tugs on her pastel pink coat and fastens the button with shaky, excited fingers as Jughead loads her stuff into the trunk. She hasn't eaten breakfast. She hasn't even eaten breakfast and she's going to  _England._ She wonders when he booked it; it must have been after she'd fallen asleep. He slings his arm over her shoulder in the cab and she plays with his fingers as they rest on her. He can navigate the airport like an actual human being, whereas she flusters and desperately looks around for signs. He's calm and casual and tugs both of their carry-on's in his hands. He takes all the stress out of travelling. She flits around the airport lounge and buys sandwiches as he naps on atop their bags. She stands at the windows and stares at huge planes and tingles in her bones at the thought of seeing everything. Of seeing things with Jughead. 

He holds her hand as they board the plane, and she smiles so hard it hurts.

 

Northern England is cold and beautiful. The green grass is vibrant, and the fossil-dove slate grey of the low lying wall as it stretches over acres of emerald into the horizon is just as beautiful as she imagined. They go on long walks into the moorland, and the wind whips at her hair. Their hands are always locked and he reaches over to kiss her cheeks. Her legs ache at the end of the first day, and she collapses into the plush mattress of the bed and breakfast they're staying at. She props herself up on her shoulders as Jughead steps out of the shower; shirtless and still damp. 

She wants him so much, but she doesn't know how. "I think I'm too attracted to you." She whispers into the air in realisation. Jughead looks up from where he's wiping his face with the towel.

"Huh?"

It's dawning on her now, and she nods. "I'm too in love with you. I have been for so long, you're not quite real to me. You're like a dream, or an idol. I can't..." she gestures to his body, "no matter how much I want to." Though she's happy she's figured it out, it's also quite disheartening. "We can't have sex." She surmises, and looks up at him worriedly. He's smiling at her fondly. 

He sits at the edge of the bed, and hangs the towel over his arms. "Do you want to keep dating?"

She frowns. "Well, yeah, but-"

"Then what does sex have to do with it?" 

Her jaw drops. "You cannot be serious. You cannot be that perfect. Nope." She shakes her head adamantly. "You're not real. I've imagined you." 

He laughs, loud and delighted, and reaches over to kiss her cheek. "Betty, I've never felt like this in my life about anyone other than you. Whatever you want, however you want me, that's what I want to do. Hell, I'm already looking at apartments in Manhattan just so I can be close to you." He grabs her delicate hands in his own sturdier ones; his muscle sinewy from digs and work. "We have something really special. I think you're stuck in a one-sided pining situation, but that's not true. I'm pining really hard in case you hadn't noticed. We're in  _England."_

She laughs, curling into his chest. "Really? Even if I'm never ready?" 

"Happy to die without it." He declares, and then falters. "Well, not happy, but if you're at by side, Betty, I don't think I'd really be afraid of anything." 

 

So they don't have sex. They go on dates and they kiss, and she comes to one of his excavations in the middle of the Californian desert. The sun beats red hot onto the exposed ancient weaponry and she watches as Jughead works; covered with sand, hand movements precise and delicate, looking every bit in his element. He comes to her press events and settles his hand on the small of her back. He leans over her cubicle with lunch in a Tupperware box and tapes of photo of them to her laptop monitor. 

She stays over at his apartment more and more often, and slowly, ever so slowly, she starts seeing them more as equals. Day by day, month by month, she feels less like a child in comparison to him. He never treats her as if there's an age difference, he introduces her to all his friends like she's his peer and not his junior, and she loves him furiously for it. She might as well be living in his apartment for all the time she spends there, and they share a bed. They haven't had sex, but they've done other stuff now. She blushes at the memory of his face between her thighs, and the feeling of his throbbing member in her hands. 

They do sexual things, they just don't have sex.

In the mornings, as she's making breakfast, he stumbles out of the bedroom, sleepy-eyed and adorable and presses up against her from behind. Chin hooked over her shoulder, erection pressed into her rear and hands snaking their way across the stomach of her tank top. She gets a thrill every time and always leans around to kiss him and he never pushes her. 

One day, when she's relaxing in his apartment as he pops to the shops, she starts clearing out one of the drawers he's said she can have. It's full of old things; useless glasses and plastic cutlery; old broken phone cable chargers that he doesn't throw away, which she sorts out, before she comes to a black box. It's the size of a shoe box, but less flimsy looking, and it's heavy when she lifts it. Curiously, she sits more comfortably on the carpeted floor of the bedroom; pink leggings stretching over her knees as she crosses her legs and sets the box on top of them. 

She lifts off the lid curiously, and beams when she sees what's inside. It's a photo album. 

She gently opens it, the material creaking, and she's greeted with the sight of baby Jughead in FP's arms. Laughing, she starts flipping through them. Soon she gets to teen Jughead, this Jughead she remembers, and there are a few pictures of him and Polly in school; one of them in the cafeteria. It's so weird. It's so weird to see them where she used to sit, midway through laughter and someone unknown snapping a picture. The next few photos are of scenes and landscapes; museums and trips and she takes them in but is less interested by them. Soon enough, her patience pays off, because she reaches college Jughead. She laughs to herself, taking in his shoulder-length shaggy hair and ridiculously large blazers. He's with people she doesn't recognise, most of the time in apartments and rarely in nightclubs. 

There's a photo she lingers over. It's one of him in his glasses; black tape over his mouth as he stands with other students in front of a statue. Protesting something. His eyes are burning with intensity even through the slightly blurry image. He's so passionate. How did she end up with someone so perfect?

Her heart drops at the next series of photos. 

They're all with a girl. She tries to think at first that they're just friends, but there's a photo of them kissing on the next page. She's beautiful. With dark skin and vibrantly pink hair. They look happy together, in all the photos. There's one of them in the car, one of them on a rollercoaster, and a more candid one of the two of them in bed. Jughead's asleep in the photo, on his side, but the girl is on her back, clearly holding the camera up and she looks ethereally beautiful with her hair splayed out. She must take photography, Betty deduces, because every photo she seems to take is utterly gorgeous. 

There's one of them in matching Christmas jumpers, and he's staring at her with diamonds in his eyes. 

They look so happy. So normal. So perfect together. 

"Betty," comes a gentle voice, and she whips around; jostling the box on her lap so it falls to the floor. Jughead is leaning against the doorway; shopping bags in his fingers and a gentle look on his face. She blinks and realises her lashes are clumpy with tears and she wipes them quickly. "Betty," he says again; admonishing, but there's a fond tint there. He sets down the bags and walks over to her. Instead of offering her a hand up, he sits down with her; groaning as if he's much too old. It makes her almost smile. "That was my girlfriend: Toni. We dated for three years, and now she is happily married to Cheryl Blossom. I'm not sure if you'll remember Cheryl-"

"Cheryl," Betty gasps, remembering the birthday party. "Cheryl's  _my_ age and-"

"Toni's my age." He nods; lips twisting into a grin. "I loved her, Betty. And so when I think about the fact that what I felt for her isn't even a hundredth of what I feel for you, it's kinda terrifying." 

She chokes with joy, and feels ridiculous as she climbs into his lap for a hug. He doesn't treat her like she's ridiculous though; he's patient and understanding and as wonderful as always. 

 

Weirdness goes away in a lot of ways, Betty thinks. Maybe through gradual time, maybe through changing your own personality, but the weirdness goes away between her and Jughead really rather suddenly on a Monday morning approximately eleven months after they've been dating. 

Her alarm wakes her up, and she groans at the thought of heading into work, but sits up and rubs her head. "Juggie," she murmurs, because he has a meeting this morning. "You gotta get up, Juggie,"

He groans incoherently into the sheets and doesn't move. 

She pushes at his shoulder a little. "Juggie, I'm serious. C'mon, baby," she reaches over to kiss his cheek, and he opens a bleary eye to blink at her.

"No." He pouts, looking young and childish. "I don't wanna." 

She thinks he's kidding, but then he genuinely does go back to sleep. It startles her. It's the first time he's ever been...ever been... _stupid._ She laughs, it bubbles out of her and wakes him up. "Oh my god," she giggles, and she can see it now, she can see how human he is, how imperfect and wonderful. "Oh my god, we're gonna have sex this morning."

He splutters on the loose feathers of their pillows. " _What?"_ He gapes ludicrously, ungracefully; completely inelegant and disorientated and her soulmate. 

She reaches over and kisses him hard, and he moans into her mouth. "I said," she whispers, glee in her voice, "today, Mr Jones, you become a man." 

It doesn't matter, she thinks, those lost years between them. Because they have so many ahead of them, for the two of them to embark on; together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment/prompt on your way out, it makes me smile so hard and type even faster!
> 
> I love you all! mwah mwah
> 
> PS: I wouldn't mind doing a third instalment in this lil verse? Maybe Jughead being reintroduced to betty's parents as her boyfriend and Polly's reaction etc, or maybe even a flip where lil jughead pines super hard over babysitter betty? LEMMIE KNOW!


End file.
